Sunday, April 5, 2009

The song addresses the issue of the government bailouts of financial institutions, and has received heavy rotation on Michigan radio stations, as well as others around the country. Rich performed the song at the CMA Awards show on April 5, 2009. The song was recorded and released in January 2009, and it appears on Rich's second solo album, Son of a Preacher Man.

----

USA Today:... at ACM Awards -- Sunday's ceremony was highlighted by performances that ranged from extravagant to poignant, perhaps none more so than John Rich's angry anthem Shuttin' Detroit Down.

"I'd like to dedicate this song tonight to all the hard-working taxpaying Americans from coast to coast who love this country as much as I do," Rich said to the audience while holding a guitar tagged with the sticker Made in the U.S.A.

"We wrote this song specifically for you," he said before launching into his searing song that feeds into taxpayer resentment about the bailouts on Wall Street...

Lyrics:My daddy taught me that in this country everyone’s the sameYou work hard for your dollar and you never pass the blameWhen it don’t go your wayNow I see all these big shots whinin’ on my evening newsAbout how they’re losin’ billions and how it’s up to me and youTo come running to the rescueWell pardon me if I don’t shed a tear ‘cause they’re selling make believeAnd we don’t buy that here

Cause in the real world they're shutting Detroit downWhile the boss man takes his bonus pay and jets out of town/And DC’s bailing out the bankers as the farmers auction groundYeah while they’re living it up on Wall Street in that New York City townHere in the real world there shuttin’ Detroit down.They’re shuttin’ Detroit down.”

Well that old man’s been workin’ in that plant most all of his lifeNow his pension plan’s been cut in half and he can’t afford to dieAnd it’s a crying shame ‘cause he ain’t the one to blameWhen I look down and see his caloused handsLet me tell you friend it gets me fightin’ mad

Cause in the real world there shutting Detroit downWhile the boss man takes his bonus pay and jets out of town/And DC’s bailing out the bankers as the farmers auction groundYeah while they’re living it up on Wall Street in that New York City townHere in the real world there shuttin’ Detroit down.They’re shuttin’ Detroit down.”

Yeah while there’ living it up on Wall Street in that New York City townHere in the real world there shuttin’ Detroit downHere in the real world there shuttin’ Detroit down

In the real world they’re shuttin Detroit down they’re shuttin’ Detroit down.

----

----

Frank Rich / NY Times:Even Rick Wagoner’s Firing Got Lousy Mileage -- Though Gekko’s most famous line is “Greed is good,” even more emblematic is his defiant summation of his brand of capitalism: “I create nothing. I own.” At least Wagoner, unlike the sultans of finance, created cars, clunkers though they often were. The politically conservative Nashville star John Rich draws this moral distinction in his powerful new hit single “Shuttin’ Detroit Down.” Motor City is “the real world,” he sings, unlike those big shots “living it up on Wall Street in that New York City town.”

But this romantic view of the auto industry is a sentimental illusion...